The Digital Marketing Blog

Zen and the Art of Lead Gen

Why? Because if you generate the right demand, you’ll generate the right leads.

When you think of growing your business, you typically think about sales. It doesn’t matter what type of industry you’re in, sales is king! The question, really, is ”How do you generate leads that ultimately convert to paying customers”. If you answered ”lead generation,” you’re only half right. Generating demand for your business is the Holy Grail. Lead generation is a subset of generating demand and generating demand requires all the skills of a Zen Master.

While there are numerous ways to generate demand through traditional, online or other marketing tactics . . . so much of your success is based on knowing your audience and using the most effective type of marketing tool to target them.

Generating demand could mean many things, but if you’re trying to build a captive audience that will continue to accept offers from you as your business grows and your products and services evolve, you must master the art of lead gen through using all the right mobile marketing tools for the right audiences.

Generating Demand is all about knowing your audience. If you’re just keeping your eye on the prize (a.k.a. your lead number) you’ll miss the prize itself: your lead quality, or better yet, your ”potential for conversion.” In other words, if you focus on generating the right demand, you’ll automatically get the right leads. Generating demand is marketing at its purest. There are so many channels through which companies make their best efforts to reach the right audience, and choosing the most effective based on your goals should be step number one.

Leads are ultimately generated from demand. Generating demand is a combination of Ninja skills that utilize the best marketing mix possible while understanding your audience through the process. Here are some of the most basic skills you must hone in order to bring in leads that will ultimately convert to loyal and paying customers:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Keep the traffic to your site flowing and leverage the power of being contextually optimized for search engines.

Display advertising – To keep your ”marketing pond” stocked with fresh and eager leads (pay attention to those raising their hand vs. those that simply don’t mind if they’re bothered) place your offers/banners (e.g. webinars or whitepapers) on highly relevant and trafficked 3rd party sites (not to mention your own).

Lead nurturing and tracking – Use a reporting tool that gives you click tracking and click-stream tracking so you can see your conversions.

Tiered offerings for early, mid and late-stage buyers.

A comprehensive social strategy that allows you to ”listen” to your audience.

An integrated marketing solution that combines email, SMS and Social Networking tools to target your audience the way they want to be reached.

ROI tracking and reporting to know where you’re spending your money.

A willingness to be transparent and share your knowledge with your audience (a.k.a. transparency to earn respect and credibility).

An auditor’s mind-frame – To understand what’s going right or wrong and why.

Less is more – Focus on quality of content not quantity of leads. If you don’t, you may just end up generating incredible lead volume with far less interest in converting.

Hone these skills or partner with someone to help you hone these skills and you’re sure to see traction in your lead generation efforts. Your demand will flow and leads will follow, but don’t stop there. Continually monitor your results and optimize your strategy accordingly. What works in the beginning may not work continually, or one tactic that works on one particular audience may not work on another. Mastering the art of lead generation through generating demand requires a multi-level strategy, but the end result in terms of the leads placed at your disposal is well worth the effort.